Australia’s cyber security environment continues to evolve as government agencies, critical infrastructure operators, large enterprises, and other organisations become increasingly dependent on digital systems. Cloud platforms, operational technology, remote access, third-party services, connected infrastructure, and emerging technologies have created significant opportunities, but they have also expanded the cyber attack surface.

 

For organisations operating in this environment, cyber security cannot be managed through isolated technical controls. It requires structured governance, risk management, clear accountability, appropriate security controls, continuous monitoring, and the ability to respond and recover when incidents occur.

 

Australia’s Information Security Manual (ISM) provides a comprehensive framework for achieving these objectives.

 

Produced by the Australian Signals Directorate (ASD), the Information Security Manual is a cyber security framework organisations can apply, alongside their risk management framework, to protect information technology (IT) and operational technology (OT) systems against cyber threats. The current official release is the June 2026 Information Security Manual, reflecting ASD’s practice of regularly updating the framework as technologies and cyber threats evolve.

 

This detailed guide explains what the information security manual is, who should use it, its core principles and guidelines, how its risk-based approach works, how it relates to the Essential Eight, and how organisations can build a structured approach to ISM alignment.

 

 

What is the Information Security Manual?

 

The Information Security Manual, commonly referred to as the ISM, is a cyber security framework developed and maintained by the Australian Signals Directorate.

 

Its purpose is to provide organisations with a framework they can apply using their own risk management processes to protect IT and OT systems from cyber threats. ASD identifies CISOs, CIOs, cyber security professionals, and IT and OT managers as the primary audience for the framework.

 

The ISM provides both strategic principles and detailed practical guidance.

 

Instead of treating cyber security as a collection of independent technical activities, the framework encourages organisations to manage security systematically throughout the lifecycle of their systems.

 

This includes areas such as governance, system management, physical and personnel security, software development, networking, cryptography, access, incident management, outsourcing, and security assurance.

 

Who develops the Australian Information Security Manual?

 

The ISM is produced by the Australian Signals Directorate, Australia’s national signals intelligence and cyber security agency.

 

ASD states that the ISM represents its considered cyber security advice and is provided in accordance with its designated functions under the Intelligence Services Act 2001.

 

This authority makes the framework particularly important for Australian government and security environments, while its detailed risk-based guidance can also be valuable for private-sector organisations seeking to strengthen cyber security governance.

 

Importantly, organisations should use the current version rather than relying on an old copy of the framework. ASD updates the ISM regularly, and the official Cyber.gov.au page currently provides the June 2026 release along with a document detailing changes made in that release.

 

Is compliance with the Information Security Manual mandatory?

 

This question requires an important distinction. The ISM itself is not universally mandatory for every Australian organisation.

 

ASD states that an organisation is not required as a matter of law to comply with the ISM unless legislation, a direction under legislation, or another lawful authority requires it to do so. The ISM also does not override legal obligations, and legislation takes precedence where a conflict exists.

 

This means organisations need to determine their specific regulatory, contractual, government, and industry obligations.

 

For some organisations, particular ISM requirements may become mandatory through another legal, regulatory, contractual, or policy mechanism. Others may choose to use the framework voluntarily because of its value as authoritative Australian cyber security guidance.

 

ASD also encourages organisations to consider relevant Australian legislation when designing, operating, and decommissioning systems, including legislation relating to privacy, archives, telecommunications, and critical infrastructure.

 

How is the Information Security Manual structured?

 

The information security manual combines strategic cyber security principles with practical guidelines and individual security controls.

 

The structure is intended to help organisations understand both the security outcomes they should pursue and the practical measures that can support those outcomes.

 

Cyber security principles

 

The ISM’s cyber security principles provide strategic guidance for protecting IT and OT systems.

 

In the June 2026 release, these principles are organised around six functions:

 

• Govern
• Identify
• Protect
• Detect
• Respond
• Recover

 

ASD states that organisations should be able to demonstrate adherence to these cyber security principles.

 

This structure helps organisations approach cyber security across the full risk lifecycle.

 

Governance establishes direction and accountability. Identification improves understanding of systems, assets, and risks. Protection focuses on safeguards. Detection helps identify cyber security events. Response supports effective action during incidents, while recovery helps restore operations and strengthen resilience.

 

Cyber security guidelines

 

The principles establish strategic direction, while the cyber security guidelines provide practical guidance.

 

ASD currently publishes ISM guidelines covering a broad range of areas, including:

 

• Cyber security roles
• Cyber security incidents
• Procurement and outsourcing
• Cyber security documentation
• Physical security
• Personnel security
• Communications infrastructure
• Communications systems
• Enterprise mobility
• Evaluated products
• Information technology equipment
• Media
• System hardening
• System management
• Security assurance
• Software development
• Database systems
• Email
• Networking
• Cryptography
• Gateways
• Data transfers

 

Organisations should consider the guidelines relevant to the systems they operate rather than treating every system as identical.

 

This is a fundamental characteristic of the ISM: security should reflect the system, its business context, the information it processes, and the risks it faces.

 

The risk-based approach behind the ISM

 

The ISM is not designed as a simple checklist where organisations implement every available control without considering risk.

 

Instead, it is intended to operate alongside an organisation’s risk management framework.

 

The ISM’s risk management approach draws from NIST Special Publication 800-37 and follows a lifecycle that broadly consists of defining the system, selecting controls, implementing controls, assessing controls, authorising the system, and monitoring the system.

 

Understanding this lifecycle is essential for effective implementation.

 

Step 1: Define the system

 

Before selecting security controls, organisations need to understand what they are protecting.

 

This includes determining the system boundary, business criticality, and security objectives based on the potential impact if confidentiality, integrity, or availability were compromised.

 

The system and its relevant characteristics should then be documented appropriately, including within a system security plan.

 

Without a clear system boundary, security teams may struggle to understand which technologies, data, dependencies, users, and risks need to be considered.

 

Step 2: Select appropriate controls

 

Once the system is understood, appropriate security controls can be selected and tailored.

 

The ISM assigns applicability markings to controls to assist organisations in this process. These markings account for different classifications and sensitivities, including non-classified systems and Australian Government security classifications.

 

However, the controls should not be treated as an exhaustive list of every possible risk or mitigation.

 

ASD explicitly describes the guidelines as an important input into risk identification and treatment rather than the complete extent of those activities.

 

Step 3: Implement the controls

 

Selected controls must then be implemented effectively.

 

Implementation involves more than writing policies that state what should happen. Organisations need technical, procedural, administrative, and physical measures that operate in practice.

 

Responsibilities should be assigned and appropriate implementation evidence maintained.

 

Step 4: Assess control effectiveness

 

Once controls are implemented, organisations need assurance that they work as intended.

 

Control assessments can identify implementation weaknesses, configuration problems, missing evidence, or controls that do not adequately address the identified risk.

 

This step is particularly important because documented compliance does not automatically equal effective security.

 

Step 5: Authorise the system

 

Relevant decision-makers need sufficient information to understand the residual security risk associated with operating the system.

 

System authorisation provides a formal point at which accountable authorities can consider security risks and determine whether the remaining exposure is acceptable.

 

Step 6: Continuously monitor the system

 

Cyber risk does not remain static after a system has been approved.

 

Vulnerabilities emerge, configurations change, software is updated, new threats appear, users change roles, and business requirements evolve.

 

Continuous monitoring allows organisations to identify changes that may affect their security posture and respond appropriately.

 

Governance and leadership under the Information Security Manual

 

Strong cyber security begins with leadership.

 

The ISM has increasingly reinforced the importance of board and executive involvement in cyber security. Guidance introduced in 2025 includes expectations around clearly defining cyber security roles and responsibilities, integrating cyber security across business functions, aligning cyber security strategy with broader business strategy, and receiving regular reporting on organisational cyber security posture and the threat environment.

 

This reflects an important change in how organisations should approach cyber risk.

 

Cyber security is no longer solely the responsibility of technical teams.

 

Boards and executive leaders need sufficient visibility to understand material cyber risks, make informed decisions, and ensure adequate resources and accountability exist across the organisation.

 

 

The role of the CISO

 

The ISM provides specific guidance around cyber security leadership.

 

ASD guidance includes appointing a CISO to provide cyber security leadership and guidance across IT and OT. It also places responsibility on the CISO for overseeing the cyber security programme and supporting compliance with applicable security policies, standards, regulations, and legislation.

 

Effective CISO oversight can include:

 

• Maintaining the cyber security programme.
• Monitoring organisational cyber risk.
• Supporting compliance.
• Maintaining visibility into systems.
• Establishing cyber security metrics.
• Reporting to leadership.
• Reviewing whether security remains appropriate as threats change.

 

Governance structures should also ensure that responsibilities extend beyond the CISO to system owners, risk owners, technology teams, business leaders, and other relevant personnel.

 

Asset and system visibility

 

Security begins with knowing what needs to be protected.

 

The ISM includes guidance around maintaining a register of organisational systems.

 

Accurate visibility helps organisations understand:

 

• Which systems exist.
• Who owns them.
• Their business importance.
• What information they process.
• Their dependencies.
• Applicable security requirements.
• Relevant risks.
• Which controls have been implemented.

 

Without reliable system visibility, vulnerability management, incident response, access governance, and compliance activities become considerably more difficult.

 

System hardening and secure configuration

 

Default configurations are rarely appropriate for every security environment.

 

The ISM contains detailed system hardening guidance designed to help organisations reduce unnecessary attack surface and strengthen configurations.

 

Depending on the system, hardening activities may include disabling unnecessary functionality, restricting administrative privileges, applying secure configuration settings, managing applications, controlling scripts and macros, and reducing exposure to known attack techniques.

 

Hardening should also be maintained throughout the lifecycle of a system.

 

Configuration drift can gradually weaken security even when the original implementation was appropriately hardened.

 

Vulnerability and patch management

 

Vulnerability management is another important component of the ISM ecosystem.

 

Organisations need processes to identify vulnerabilities, evaluate their relevance, prioritize remediation, apply patches or other mitigations, and verify that risks have been addressed.

 

Prioritisation should consider more than technical severity.

 

Business criticality, exposure, available exploits, threat intelligence, and potential operational impact can all influence remediation urgency.

 

The relationship between vulnerability management and the Essential Eight is particularly strong, with Essential Eight guidance covering application and operating system patching and mapping those requirements to relevant ISM controls.

 

Identity and access security

 

Compromised credentials remain a major cyber security threat.

 

Access should therefore be granted based on legitimate business requirements and appropriately restricted.

 

Relevant practices can include:

 

• Multi-factor authentication.
• Least-privilege access.
• Privileged access management.
• Account lifecycle management.
• Access reviews.
• Secure administration.
• Segregation of duties.
• Monitoring privileged activity.

 

Strong access governance reduces the likelihood that compromised or inappropriate accounts can be used to gain extensive control over organisational systems.

 

Cyber security incident management

 

Even organisations with mature security controls can experience cyber incidents.

 

The ISM therefore includes dedicated guidance for cyber security incidents.

 

Organisations should establish incident response capabilities before an event occurs.

 

This includes defining responsibilities, escalation procedures, communication processes, investigation methods, containment activities, recovery processes, and lessons-learned mechanisms.

 

Incident plans should also be tested.

 

A response plan that exists only as a document may fail when teams need to make decisions quickly during a real attack.

 

Procurement, outsourcing and third-party risk

 

Modern organisations depend heavily on technology suppliers.

 

Cloud providers, SaaS vendors, managed service providers, software developers, contractors, and outsourced operations can all become part of an organisation’s security environment.

 

The ISM includes specific guidance addressing procurement and outsourcing.

 

Security should therefore be considered throughout the supplier lifecycle, including:

 

• Vendor selection
• Security due diligence
• Contractual requirements
• Data access
• System access
• Incident obligations
• Ongoing monitoring
• Service termination

 

Outsourcing an activity does not automatically remove the risks associated with that activity.

 

Cryptography and data protection

 

The ISM contains dedicated guidance for cryptography and data transfers, reflecting the importance of protecting information as it is stored, processed, and communicated.

 

Organisations should select appropriate cryptographic controls based on the sensitivity of information, system requirements, applicable policy, and risk.

 

Key management is also critical.

 

Strong encryption can provide limited protection if cryptographic keys are poorly generated, stored, distributed, or revoked.

 

Software development and application security

 

Security weaknesses introduced during software development can remain hidden until systems are deployed.

 

The ISM therefore includes guidance specifically addressing software development.

 

Organisations should integrate cyber security throughout the development lifecycle rather than conducting security reviews only before production.

 

Depending on the environment, this can include secure design, code review, security testing, dependency management, change control, vulnerability remediation, and appropriate separation between development and production environments.

 

What is the relationship between the ISM and Essential Eight?

 

The Essential Eight and Information Security Manual are closely connected, but they are not the same framework.

 

The Essential Eight represents eight prioritised mitigation strategies ASD recommends as a baseline for making it harder for adversaries to compromise systems. These cover application patching, operating system patching, multi-factor authentication, restricting administrative privileges, application control, restricting Microsoft Office macros, user application hardening, and regular backups.

 

The ISM is substantially broader.

 

It provides an extensive cyber security framework covering governance, risk, system security, technology operations, incident management, cryptography, outsourcing, development, networking, and many other areas.

 

ASD provides a formal mapping between the Essential Eight Maturity Model and ISM controls. However, organisations are advised to consider their Essential Eight and ISM requirements independently rather than assuming that achieving a particular Essential Eight maturity level automatically determines the scope of applicable ISM controls.

 

How to implement the Information Security Manual

 

Because the ISM is extensive, organisations should avoid approaching implementation as a large checklist exercise.

 

A structured risk-based programme is more effective.

 

1. Establish governance

 

Define executive oversight, cyber security leadership, system ownership, risk ownership, and responsibilities for implementing and assessing controls.

 

2. Identify systems and boundaries

 

Maintain an accurate system register and define the boundaries, information, dependencies, owners, and criticality associated with systems.

 

3. Conduct risk assessments

 

Identify relevant threats, vulnerabilities, business impacts, and existing safeguards.

 

Risk assessments should guide security decisions rather than being completed solely for documentation.

 

4. Determine applicable controls

 

Evaluate relevant ISM controls based on the system, its classification, security objectives, risk profile, and applicable obligations.

 

Document decisions and any tailoring performed.

 

5. Implement controls

 

Assign ownership and establish clear implementation plans.

 

Technical and procedural controls should operate in practice rather than exist only in policies.

 

6. Collect evidence

 

Maintain evidence demonstrating that controls have been implemented and continue to operate effectively.

 

Evidence can include configurations, logs, policies, approvals, assessment reports, access reviews, test results, and other records.

 

7. Assess controls

 

Test whether controls achieve their intended security outcomes and document deficiencies.

 

8. Remediate identified gaps

 

Findings should be assigned to accountable owners with priorities, target dates, and remediation plans.

 

9. Authorise systems

 

Decision-makers should understand residual cyber security risks before systems are authorised to operate.

 

10. Monitor continuously

 

Changes to systems, threats, vulnerabilities, risks, controls, and business requirements should be monitored throughout the lifecycle.

 

Common ISM implementation challenges

 

The depth of the information security manual creates several practical challenges.

 

Large numbers of controls

 

Managing an extensive control environment manually can become difficult, particularly when organisations operate many systems with different security requirements.

 

Evidence management

 

Teams may implement controls effectively but struggle to maintain structured evidence demonstrating compliance.

 

Evidence scattered across emails, shared drives, ticketing systems, and spreadsheets creates unnecessary audit work.

 

Control ownership

 

Controls without clearly assigned owners can quickly become outdated or ineffective.

 

Every relevant control should have accountability for implementation, monitoring, and remediation.

 

Continuous changes

 

Because ASD regularly updates the ISM, organisations need processes for understanding changes and determining whether they affect existing systems and controls.

 

Fragmented governance

 

When risk registers, controls, evidence, system information, and remediation plans exist in separate tools, leadership may lack a reliable view of overall compliance.

 

Using automation for ISM compliance

 

Managing a sophisticated cyber security framework through spreadsheets can become increasingly difficult as an organisation grows.

 

GRC automation can help organisations structure ISM implementation by connecting:

 

System → Risk → ISM Control → Owner → Evidence → Assessment → Finding → Remediation

 

This provides traceability throughout the security programme.

 

Automated workflows can also support recurring control reviews, evidence requests, policy approvals, remediation deadlines, notifications, and management reporting.

 

The objective is not to automate security decisions themselves.

 

Instead, automation reduces repetitive administrative work so cyber security and risk teams can spend more time assessing risks and improving security outcomes.

 

ISM and continuous compliance

 

A major mistake is treating ISM alignment as something that is completed once.

 

Technology environments and cyber threats change continuously.

 

A control that was effective when a system was authorised may become ineffective after infrastructure changes, software updates, new integrations, or emerging threats.

 

Continuous compliance therefore requires organisations to monitor:

 

• Control effectiveness
• System changes
• Vulnerabilities
• Security incidents
• Risk treatment
• Policy reviews
• Assessment findings
• Remediation progress
• Changes to ISM guidance

 

This approach creates a living cyber security programme rather than a static compliance project.

 

Simplify Information Security Manual management with CyberArrow GRC

 

The Australian Information Security Manual provides organisations with one of the country’s most comprehensive approaches to managing cyber security risk.

 

Its value comes from going beyond isolated security controls. The ISM connects governance, risk assessment, system security, cyber security operations, incident management, third-party considerations, resilience, and continuous monitoring into a broader security framework.

 

For organisations managing multiple systems and large numbers of controls, however, maintaining this governance manually can quickly become complicated.

 

Risks may be tracked in one spreadsheet, controls in another, evidence stored in shared folders, findings managed through email, and management reporting compiled manually before every assessment.

 

CyberArrow GRC helps organisations centralise and automate Governance, Risk, and Compliance activities so that frameworks such as the ISM can be managed through structured workflows rather than fragmented manual processes.

 

Organisations can use CyberArrow GRC to centralise risks, controls, policies, evidence, assessments, findings, remediation activities, and compliance reporting while creating clearer accountability across their security programme.

 

This helps transform ISM management from periodic compliance administration into a more continuous and measurable governance process.

 

Trusted by some of the world’s biggest brands across the United States, Europe, Africa, Asia, and the Middle East, CyberArrow helps organisations simplify complex GRC programmes, automate compliance activities, improve audit readiness, and maintain greater visibility across security and regulatory requirements.

 

For organisations adopting the Information Security Manual, the goal should not simply be to maintain a long list of controls.

 

The goal is to know which risks matter, which controls address them, whether those controls are working, and whether the organisation can demonstrate that continuously.

 

That is where modern GRC automation can make ISM implementation significantly easier to manage at scale.

 

 

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